Anatomy of an Attack

Anatomy of an Attack

1. Information Gathering:

1.1 Passive.

1.2 Active.

2. Networking Mapping:

2.1 Identify Live Hosts.

2.2 Identify Open Ports.

2.3 Identify Services.

2.4 Identify Operating System.

3. Vulnerability Identification (Assessment and Verification):

3.1 Default Configuration.

3.2 Vulnerability Scanning (known vulnerabilities).

3.3 Vulnerability scanning (unknown vulnerabilities).

4. Prepare for Penetration:

4.1 Identify Proof of concept (PoC) tool(s).

4.2 Testing PoC.

4.2 Fire PoC.

5. Gaining Access and Privilege Escalation:

5.1 Obtain User Access.

5.2 Obtain Operator Access.

5.3 Obtain Administrative Access.

6. Enumerate Further:

6.1 Sniff the traffic and analyze traffic.

6.2 Obtain passwords.

6.3 Gather cookies.

6.4 Analyzing route information and whole network.

7. Attack on Remote Users/Site (n vis-a-vis) (Optional):

8. Maintain Access:

8.1 Backdoor.

8.2 Rootkit.

8.3 Establish Tunnel.

9. Cover your Tracks:

9.1 Remove Logs (windows).

9.1.1 Remove Event Viewer Log.

9.1.2 Remove Application Log (e.g. Terminal Service, Mail Server, and Application Server).

9.1.2 Remove Web server Log.

Conclusion :
The above details clearly reflect as to what methodologies to be followed in a penetration test environment. Please treat this know-how as an opensource. Would be glad to answer your questions if you have any.
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Hassan
http://securityassessmentframework.blogspot.com/
http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/issaf